‘An inhabited volcano’, the eruption in La Palma in an “honest and close” story

Far from a film “of volcano tourists” and from the sensationalism of the news, the Canary Islanders David Pantaleón and José Víctor Fuentes have presented in Time of History Un volcán habitado, about the eruption in La Palma in 2021.

With Fuentes’ family living a kilometer and a half from ground zero, the co-directors felt “the need” to go and see the phenomenon in situ, out of a kind of “attraction to the abyss”. WhatsApp audios in a group of his friends on the island commenting on the event gave “a more honest account, very first-person and far removed from what the media told.”

Far from the sensationalism of the news, they wanted to show “the b side”, because in addition to the misfortunes and the crying, they found a lot of solidarity among those affected: “People helped and supported each other, when there is a tragedy there is always something that comforts you”.

While recording the shocking images, they saw that the audios “contained the story” they wanted to tell so as not to make “a volcano tourist movie”. But at no time did they reveal to the “narrators” that their recordings were going to be used, “so as not to alter the story” and “not to lose the naturalness”. After that it was all a matter of “patience to find the honest and close film” they were looking for, said the co-directors. “A geological story, but also an emotional one.